U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids in Los Angeles over the weekend have kicked off a wave of events that include protests and rare deployments of troops. As the situation keeps changing, here’s the latest.
Trump spoke about the situation in the nation’s second largest city Tuesday night and promised that the National Guard would stay there until “peace” is restored. Hours before, CNN reporter Jason Carroll and his crew were briefly detained by officers near a protest zone.
On Monday, KNX News’ the LA Local did a comprehensive dive into the events that resulted in the guard being called in the first place.
“What started with aggressive ICE raids into places like a clothing factory in South LA and a labor center in the Compton Home Depot parking lot ended with a day of peaceful protests in downtown on Sunday, which then devolved into burning cars and clashes with police,” explained host Jonathan Serviss. “The National Guard rolled into town late Saturday night and today we learned that some 500 to 700 marines are being deployed to our city.”
During a Tuesday rally, Trump called the actions in LA a “willful attempt to nullify federal law,” as political leaders, including Gov. Gavin Newsom and LA Mayor Karen Bass honored the city’s status as a sanctuary city.
Bass told the LA Local that she was “appalled” at the actions of ICE, particularly the way it targeted work centers and didn’t seem to focus on the violent criminals that Trump often references when he speaks on his initiative to crack down on illegal immigration. A press release from Newsom’s office issued Tuesday declared that the governor filed an emergency motion to block “Trump’s unlawful militarization of Los Angeles.”
CNN reported that a judge denied the order.
“Trump and [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth jumped from zero to 60,” California Attorney General Rob Bonta told the LA Local. “Bypassing law enforcement expertise and evaluation, they threw caution to the wind and sidelined strategy in an unnecessary and inflammatory escalation that only further spurred unrest. Let's be very clear, there was no risk of rebellion, no threat of foreign invasion, no inability for the federal government to enforce federal laws. It’s no accident that the right to peaceful protest is in the First Amendment. It’s because peaceful protest is a cornerstone of any healthy democracy.”
Bonta also said this is the first time since 1965 that a president sent National Guard Troops to a state without a request from the state’s governor.
“For context, that was in Alabama, where national troops helped to desegregate local schools,” he said.
Peter Eliasberg is chief counsel for the ACLU of Southern California, called the added choice to deploy Marines to California “an escalation,” and a “a deliberate provocation,” by Hegseth.
“We have a long, long historical tradition of not deploying military troops to do any kind of law enforcement activities,” he said. Eliasberg also told KNX that the only thing the Marines can do is protect federal buildings, that is unless Trump invokes the Insurrection Act., “which unfortunately he seems to be threatening to do, but would be really a major step towards authoritarianism if he were to do it.”
Trump does seem determined to move ahead with law enforcement action in LA – CNN reported that there were skirmishes in downtown Los Angeles that included the California National Guard, Department of Homeland Security and ICE, with firing of non-lethal tear gas outside a federal detention center to disperse protesters.
“If we didn’t do this… Los Angeles would be burning to the ground right now, just like their houses burned to the ground just a few months ago,” Trump said Tuesday. He was apparently referring to wildfires that ravaged the area earlier this year.
Serviss noted that “uber-aggressive immigration enforcement tactics you're seeing playing out right now in America's big cities was prescribed in Project 2025,” a plan for conservative government authored by the Heritage Foundation. He spoke with Cully Stimson, manager of the National Security Law Program at Heritage to get their perspective on the current situation in LA.
“Newsom and Mayor Bass have proven themselves to be complete absolute failures with respect to ensuring peace and tranquility, the president had two options,” he said. “Do nothing and let the place burn to the ground and ICE agents and federal officers being wilded upon, injured, and perhaps killed, or be the leader that he is. And so, he took the latter course of action.
However, Serviss mentioned that the state did not ask for the raids and that many of those arrested don’t have extensive criminal records. He also mentioned that the Trump administration seems to keep its attention on large cities when it could round up thousands of illegal immigrants – perhaps more easily – at rural sites located in Republican strongholds. Stimson indicated that those types of raids might be on the horizon.
“Trump won the popular vote,” he said. “Enforcement of immigration law is wildly popular. I don't really care what the so-called leaders in Southern California are doing or their attitude about this.”
Protests started to break out in other cities this week, CNN said, including New York and San Francisco. As for Los Angeles, here’s what the president wants: “The only flag that will wave triumphant over the streets of Los Angeles is the American flag, so help me god.”